


Into Shadows, Part 9

by skyblue_reverie



Series: Into Shadows [9]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Fix-It, Gen, M/M, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 22:14:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20896961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyblue_reverie/pseuds/skyblue_reverie
Summary: My version of Into Darkness.This part: Khan has hostages, and Jim has to make an impossible choice.





	Into Shadows, Part 9

Khan rose to his feet, pulling Bones with him. Jim stilled, not wanting to provoke Khan into violence.

“What do you want?” he said, with what he thought was admirable poise given the situation. Fuck, Khan had Chris and Bones both, and he couldn’t get to them, couldn’t rush Khan and try to take him down. By the time he got through the door Khan would have killed them both.

“Eight three, four nine, three three, one seven.” Khan smirked. Jim was getting really tired of Khan’s smirks.

“More fucking coordinates?” Jim asked disbelievingly. 

“You will order the Enterprise to go there now, at maximum warp. There is a small class M planet at that location, in a sector that has not been claimed by the Federation, the Klingons, or the Romulans. So I’m going to claim it, on behalf of me and my people. You will drop us there with one month’s worth of emergency supplies, and then you will leave and never return again. You will never tell anyone the truth about what has become of my and my people. And in exchange, we will never again enter Federation space.”

“What am I supposed to tell Starfleet I did with you?”

Khan shrugged. “Tell them whatever you want, other than the truth. But so help me, if you betray me again, I will make you regret it until the end of your extremely numbered days.”

Suddenly Pike spoke up, his voice neutral and although Jim could see how tense he was, how much he wanted to spring for Khan, to help Bones, he held himself still. “The coordinates. Is that Ceti Alpha V?”

Khan froze and his eyes bored into Pike’s like lasers. “You must have an encyclopedic knowledge of stellar cartography.”

“Call it a pet project,” said Pike. “I also know that it’s an unstable star system and in the near future Ceti Alpha V is going to suffer an ecological disaster that will render it uninhabitable and most likely kill anything living there.”

Kirk was trying to figure out how the _hell_ Chris knew that, and obviously Khan was wondering the same thing, his eyes narrowed as he stared at Pike, though his phaser hand never wavered and his grip on Bones remained tight. Bones himself was watching the interplay between Pike and Khan, obviously freaked out but maintaining his composure.

_Old Spock,_ Jim suddenly realized. Chris must have spoken with him. But Khan couldn’t find that out, couldn’t know that they had a way of essentially seeing the future. That knowledge in Khan’s hands was much too dangerous.

“It’s true,” Jim said to Khan, improvising a cover story. “Pike and I have been working together on a project, scouting planets for possible settlement, expansion of Federation territory. But the Ceti Alpha system isn’t safe. The sun isn't stable. But – I know a place,” he added as it seemed Khan was getting ready to explode. 

“Go on,” Khan said, tightening his arm around Bones’ neck warningly. The ping of the decontamination cycle finishing was loud in the silence. The decontamination chamber door wouldn’t be locked anymore, but Jim couldn’t possibly get through it before Khan had time to kill one or both of his hostages. He ignored the ping and answered Khan.

“It’s an ice planet. Delta Vega. Not hospitable, but inhabitable. And there’s an abandoned Starfleet outpost there that you and your people could live in.”

Khan considered this for a mere moment, then nodded. “Fine. Contact the bridge and tell them to set course for Delta Vega. But don’t say one other word or I will kill my hostages.”

Jim nodded. He grabbed his communicator and flipped it open. “Kirk to Bridge,” he said.

“Spock here,” came the response. Jim nearly sighed in relief. Thank god it was Spock on the bridge.

“Mr. Spock, I am Acting Captain, and as such, I am ordering you to set course for Delta Vega in the Vulcan system at maximum warp. No questions. Do it now.”

“Understood. Spock out,” was the crisp reply. Spock got it, then. “No questions” was their code phrase to be used when one of them was under duress and needed to warn the other. It was only between Jim and Spock; when they’d been a command team they’d devised it, and they hadn’t been split up long enough to work something similar out with their new respective captains. It was only through a completely crazy twist of fate that the situation had shaken out with him in command and Spock on the bridge. Whatever. Jim would take it.

Sure enough, moments later the alarm klaxons began to sound. Now he would have smirked himself, if the situation hadn't still been so precarious. He couldn't forget that Khan still had hostages, the two people who were most important to him. He spoke to Khan in a measured tone, trying to get him to see reason. “We’ve gone into emergency lockdown. The shuttle bays won’t open and the transporters won’t beam anyone off the ship. The helm won’t respond either, not until Pike and I both authorize it with DNA and voiceprint. There’s nowhere to go, Khan. You’ve lost.”

Jim could practically see the gears turning in Khan’s head as his eyes darted from side to side, trying to come up with a way out of the trap. A look of insane rage crossed his face, and then he began to grin maniacally. Jim didn’t like it. Khan began to speak, practically giggling, and he sounded utterly deranged.

“I heard things about you, back on earth, Commander Kirk. Formerly _Captain_ James T. Kirk. Starfleet’s golden boy, their poster child for recruitment, the youngest captain ever, and of the flagship, no less. I also heard how proud you are of your record. You’ve never lost a crew member, and you don’t believe in no-win scenarios. So let’s put that belief to the test. Let’s see how you get out of this one. You can choose to save one of your friends, Kirk. Only one. The other one, I’m going to kill. So, who will it be? Your captain, your mentor? Or your best friend, the doctor?”

Jim's gut clenched, but forced himself to speak. “I still have your crew; I could kill them in retaliation if you hurt either one.” 

“You could, but you won’t,” Khan said, annoyingly sure of himself, and still smiling. “Threaten to let them die in an explosion that’s going to happen anyway, maybe. But kill them in cold blood? I don’t think you have it in you. I don’t think anyone in Starfleet has the balls for that, except for dear departed Admiral Marcus.”

The hell of it was, Khan was right. 

“Take me instead.” Jim’s voice was steady. His heart was pounding and his mouth was dry, but he hid his turmoil as much as possible. Couldn’t show weakness to the bastard.

Khan giggled again. “I don’t want you to die. Or at least, not yet. That wouldn’t hurt nearly enough. No, I want you to choose. If you don’t choose, I will kill both of them. I can blast a hole through both of their torsos before you have time to get through that door. I’ll make sure to target their stomachs, so they both die a slow, painful, but inevitable death, right before your eyes. If you choose, I’ll make the death quick.”

Now it was Jim’s turn to think frantically, trying to find a way out of this. He couldn’t think of one. He’d won the larger battle; Khan’s plans wouldn’t come to fruition. But Bones and Chris were still in danger and he couldn’t see how to save them both. His eyes frantically met first Bones’ and then Chris’s. Each one was obviously willing him with all their might to pick the other to live. He couldn’t do this. He _couldn’t_. But he had to.

Chris's voice interrupted his spiraling panic. “Jim, it’s okay,” he said, calm and clear. “This is what it means to earn the chair. Sometimes you can’t save everyone. You know what to do.”

Jim’s breath left him and it felt like time had slowed to a near-stop. He did know what to do. He didn’t like it; he hated it, but he knew. He hoped Chris could read the sorrow in his eyes, all the emotion that he had for the man who’d been the closest thing to a father he’d ever known. Then he looked straight at Khan, and he spoke. “Kill Captain Pike.” 

Khan laughed in sheer jubilation and then moved the phaser from Bones’ head so it pointed at Chris. As soon as Khan’s arm moved, Jim was in motion too. He launched himself at the door to the containment unit, jammed the open button, and threw himself at Khan. He knew he wouldn’t be in time to save Chris, but he could still save Bones.

He heard the blast of Khan’s phaser just before he impacted with him. He hoped he’d managed to knock Khan’s aim off but he couldn’t look to see. He tried to take Khan down, tried to pin his arms and get him down, but Khan was too strong. They wrestled madly for a few moments and then suddenly Spock was there too, and other security personnel, and they were all firing phasers at Khan from point-blank range. The shots didn’t kill him, but they slowed him down and Spock managed to snap heavy-duty restraints on him before saying into his comm, “Emergency transport directly to security cell.” Khan’s figure swirled and disappeared, cutting off his roar of outrage.

Jim didn’t even wait for the sparkles to fade before he was kneeling at Chris’s side. It looked like the phaser shot had taken him right in the chest, and it must have been set for maximum damage, because it had practically vaporized the skin and bones protecting his heart. He was alive, barely, and Bones was frantically trying to stop the bleeding with his bare hands, but even Jim could see that it was too late. He knew, though, that Bones wouldn’t give up until all hope was gone. “Emergency transport direct to sickbay,” Jim barked into his own comm. He felt the transporter beam taking him and he surrendered to it.

The next moments were a blur. He stumbled out of the way and leaned against the wall in medbay as Bones and a team tried desperately to patch Chris up, to revive him. He heard the flatlining of the monitors, heard Bones calling for the internal defibrillator to use directly on Chris’s heart; there was no surface on his chest to use the exterior paddles. Meds were pushed as Bones shocked Chris’s heart again and again, but other than showing the shocks from the defibrillator, the flatline didn’t change. Chris was gone.

Jim could see the rest of the medical staff looking increasingly concerned as Bones refused to give up. Finally, he stepped forward and put a hand on Bones’ shoulder. He knew his own grief would come, but right now he just felt numb. “I’m sorry, Bones,” he said quietly. “He’s gone. You need to stop now.”

At first he thought Bones hadn’t heard him. But after two more tries with the defib, Bones lowered his head and gasped out a breath that was half sob. “Call it,” he choked out to another one of the team as he stumbled to a chair and collapsed into it.

The med team quietly went about the business of calling time of death and beginning to move the body. Then Bones yelled. “Wait! Get me one of those cryo tubes. NOW!” 

Everyone started and stared at him. Bones was staring at something else, though. It was the formerly dead tribble on the table in front of him, and it was cooing.

There was stunned inaction, and Jim rallied himself first. “You heard him! Get one of those cryo tubes and get Captain Pike into it, now!” This seemed to break the spell that was over the medbay and people scrambled into action. 

Jim went to Bones, who was still staring at the tribble, transfixed. Jim almost didn't want to hope, but if anyone could pull off a medical miracle, it was Bones. “Bones, tell me what I can do. Tell me how I can help.”

Bones’ gaze swung toward Jim and Jim blanched. He’d never seen Bones look at _anyone_ that way, much less at _him_, with utterly dispassionate contempt and disgust. “Get out of my sight, Jim,” he said in a level, dead voice that chilled Jim. “And don’t you ever come near me again.” And then he was up and back by Chris’s side, having dismissed Jim entirely.


End file.
